Full Pundit: Stephen Harper, the Métropolis shooting and the long-gun registry

Full Pundit: Stephen Harper, the Métropolis shooting and the long-gun registry

On guns and ammunition
Susan Riley, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, thinks that Stephen Harper might make an exception to the “Ignore Quebec” strategy that some believe he will adopt, when it comes to Quebec’s desire for long-gun registry data. “Especially in the wake of this week’s ugly shooting in Montreal, it would be a conciliatory gesture (even if the gun registry would not have prevented that particular crime),” she says. “It could take wind out of [Pauline] Marois’ sails and lift dismal Conservative fortunes.” (What’s the gun lobby gonna do — vote NDP?) “More important, it would be the magnanimous, and astute, gesture of a statesman. Someone who hasn’t entirely written off Quebec.” Maybe it would. But we don’t see it happening. And frankly, if Quebec really wants its own registry, given the state of the data in the old one it might be better off starting from scratch. Getting it right was never really what our long-gun registry was about.

Colby Cosh, writing on his Maclean’s blog, understands how the media might end up confused — either through ignorance or through experience in more violent locales — about the sort of gun used in the Métropolis shooting. Was it an AK-47? An automatic rifle? A “machine gun”? He is nonplussed, however, by “a Montreal police spokesman … who waved off questions about the gun by saying ‘It’s a prohibited or restricted weapon’ and adding ‘A gun like that doesn’t go in the register.’ The gun” — which is a CZ 858 — “not only could go in the register; turns out it was in the register. Which is small comfort,” as Cosh says.

In an interesting piece in the Vancouver Sun, Jonathan Manthorpenotes the good news, “for those of us who flinch at the distinctive sound of the AK-47 in action,” that the company that makes the legendary assault rifle is nearly bankrupt — and the less good news that “that about 100 million copies … are still in circulation.” “The AK-47 has been the essential player in every war of liberation, civil war and international conflict since it first came into service with the Soviet military in 1949,” he writes. It’s on flags and coats of arms and terrorist logos. In Somalia, you can apparently get one for $100. We haven’t heard the last of it.

Byelection bluesThe National Post’s Scott Stinson suggests that the Ontario Liberals’ loss in the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection constitutes a stinging “no thanks” to the idea of handing them back a majority in the legislature. Sun Media’s Christina Blizzard thinks the PCs’ loss in said riding, which they had held for 22 years, reflects poorly on leader Tim Hudak’s leadership. And the Toronto Star’s Martin Regg Cohn agrees with both of these assessments, and thinks it puts both Hudak’s and Premier Dalton McGuinty’s long-term political futures in significant doubt.

Oh, right, and well done to the NDP for winning.

Thank goodness it’s union-bashing FridayThe National Post’s Marni Soupcoff gets behind Pierre Poilievre’s suggestion to make union membership optional, citing the positive economic experiences in U.S. “right-to-work” states and the possibility that unions might stop doing dumb stuff that annoys a significant percentage of their members.

Randall Denley, writing in the Citizen, argues that when unions complain about greedy corporations, “they ignore the pressures created by stock markets and consumers, both of which are really you and me. … If profits aren’t going up, you and I will stop investing and our pension funds will sell their shares. As consumers, many of us encourage low wages by choosing cheap foreign goods over goods made by union members in Canada.” It’s nothing personal against union members, he insists; just “business.”

Duly notedPostmedia’s Andrew Coyne appreciated Bill Clinton’s address at the Democratic convention “as the wonkiest speech in the history of wonkery, full of phrases like ‘block grant Medicaid’ and ‘biomedical research’,” and, he says, “us wonks gotta represent.” The lesson here, other than that Clinton can hold a room like few others, is that “substance sells. … You really can talk to them as if they were adults. … When a candidate really knows his stuff, when he speaks from his own heart and mind rather than a hired pen and a teleprompter, when he takes the audience into his confidence, they will repay him with theirs.”

Rick Salutin, writing in the Toronto Star, debunks Richard Stursberg’s self-defence of his tenure at CBC. The problem, says Salutin, isn’t that Stursberg was driving hard for viewership numbers. The problem is that you can get eyeballs with quality programming as easily as you can with tosh, and that Stursberg “simply has no taste. Want evidence? Stursberg cites Friends as a quality show that got big audiences.” Dear God. Case closed.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.